Neopets: the Millennial’s first foray into the Metaverse
Devices like the Tamagotchi gave way to sites like Neopets. Neopets started as a virtual pet website where you could buy and own virtual pets and items using virtual currency. It’s been interesting to see how it chugged along through the years since its debut in 1999.
At its height, Neopets had about 20 million users. Nickelodeon bought it out in 2005 and then sold it again in 2014 to a company called JumpStart Games. The site is still accessible 20 years later, though it has fewer active users than when it first launched.
It is fun to read the initial coverage of Neopets and see parents complaining about the same things kids are still encountering online today. “The whole purpose of this site at this point is to keep kids in front of products,” Susan Linn, an author and psychologist, told CBS News in 2005. As if the Web3-obsessed internet of today isn’t already headed for the same fate. Have we learned nothing, people?
